Mothers

The filmmaker returns to the northern Chinese village where he was born to document the consequences of 30 years of the one-child policy. He follows the Family Planning Commission, which forces women to be sterilised after giving birth. While the film occasionally resembles a tragicomedy reminiscent of Communist propaganda movies, it gradually becomes a chilling spectacle. Especially when the desperate members of the Commission who will lose their jobs if they fail to meet the quotas begin devising ways to compel the women to undergo sterilisation. The rawness of the film is underscored by the naturalistic portrayal of life in rural China. (One World)